As many of you have been finding out lately, there aren't very many companies that are hiring. The jobs just aren't there—unless you are an foreigner who wants to work here because for them it's almost a mini hiring boom.

An article in the India Posttitled: "Sudden increase in demand for H1B visa" is no joke:

After months of lackluster response, US authorities have witnessed a sudden increase in demand for H-1B work visa, which is popular among Indian professionals, though the applications received so far are still over 6,000 short of the Congress-mandated cap of 65,000.

An improving economic outlook and confidence in hiring may be driving this increase. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), an organization whose members include large companies of 7,000 employees or more that include tech firms, said that in its member survey for November that 28% of respondents planned to increase college hiring, compared with 17% in August.

"College hiring has started to look better, much better than it did," said Ed Koc, who heads research at association.

The more likely scenario is that companies are hiring the H-1Bs that are graduating from our schools while at the same time American grads are left in the lurch. For older Americans it means that they are being totally cut out of the high tech job market.

The immigration law firm Cohen&Grigsby recently sent out an email newsletter that was more specific about the rush to secure H-1B visas. The problem as they see it is that companies are hiring so many H-1Bs that the yearly cap of 85,000 is close to running out:

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) has announced that, as of December 8, 2009, it had received 61,500 petitions to satisfy the congressionally mandated general H-1B cap of 65,000 petitions for fiscal year 2010 (FY 2010). CIS has already received all 20,000 of the ”advanced degree” exemptions for FY 2010, which means that any H-1B petitions filed on behalf of an alien with an advanced degree will now count toward the general H-1B cap.

Remember Cohen&Grigsby? They were the law firm that was featured in the infamous YouTube video that the Programmer's Guild put online. That video clip of a seminar on how not to hire Americans has over 360,000 hits. In Segment 5 of the complete video of the seminar called "Alternatives to the H-1B visas" you can hear how to import workers even if there are not enough H-1B visas left for all the employers that want cheap labor.

So, back to their email newsletter that has a clear message for employers who want to hire foreign workers even if the number of H-1B visas runs out soon. According to the email all employers have to do is to hire Cohen&Grigsby because they know all the loopholes and tricks.

Please contact us [email] immediately if you have a case that may be subject to the cap and/or if you wish to discuss any H-1B alternatives.